Starting to Heal

I'm not a doctor or a medical professional in any way.  I tend to look for more holistic and natural means when I'm not feeling well.  Generally, my health has been great my whole life.  I've been very active.  I LOVE to walk. I rowed for a few years and loved it.  Then last November I remember getting out of bed in the morning and feeling something twist in my back  right thigh muscle.  As the day progressed, the feeling got worse and worse.  Sitting or lying down, I had no pain.  If I walked too much or stood too much, the pain was horrible.  I can't describe it clearly.  It was not a muscle pull pain, I've had those and can still function.  Not my back.  Almost like a fire was smoldering beneath my muscles.  Eventually, the pain crept down the side of my right leg, like lava down the side of a mountain.  It ended with my middle toes tingling periodically; the feeling of when your foot falls asleep, but this was when I was standing or walking.  At work, by the end of the day, the pain was so pronounced that I was like Igor hobbling to do bus duty.  I was practically dragging my right leg. 

Pain is draining.  I had this physical pain as well as the emotional pain of my daughter's addiction.  That was the time where she had withdrawn from graduate school and we were in a kind of limbo.  My work can be draining too, as I said, emotions are draining and the children I work with are emotionally damanged.  So, last fall I was a mess. Because I wasn't moving as much, I gained weight. I slept more than I should on the weekends. The pain was dictating my days.  I did make an appointment with a doctor after Christmas.  I researched on the internet what my problem could be.  I had heard of people talking about sciatica, but those simptoms didn't fit.  This was a little different.  I eventually found something that hit every symptom I had.  I made the appointment and talked with the doctor.  She told me what I probably had was something called piriformis syndrome.  It mimics sciatica but is caused by the muscles in your buttocks pinching the sciatic nerve (that's what I had thought it could be).  Stretching and weight loss were my best options.  She also gave me a perscription for 600 mgs of ibuprofen.  I hate taking that amount of medicadtion three times a day, but it did help alittle and any relief was welcomed.  Fast forward to the wellness day we had at work.  One of the speakers suggested drinking aloe vera juice and pomegranete juice for your skin.  I did buy some, but didn't drink any. I don't know why, I think I was just too drained to make the effort.  Then I started reading on how inflamation in the body can cause a lot of problems.  I heard someone else say that the aloe vera juice was a natural anti-inflamatory.   So, two weeks ago I started drinking that mixture every morning when I woke up.  This is day five that I have had no pain.  I am not taking the ibuprofen anymore, though two asprin in the morning is still helpful sometimes. 

My knees were beginning to bother me, too, and they are feeling better.  I do have arthritis in my right knee, but have been treated for that since 2005.  That has really not been a problem until recently. As I write this, I can bend my knees without the amount of pain I had begun to feel.  I was shuffling like a tender 90 year old for a while, and now I'm getting back to normal.  I am hoping that by the time school starts, again, I'll be as good as new. 

I just wanted to write this because of how wonderful it feels not to be in pain 24 hours a day.  Pain-physical or emotional- is distracting and exhausting.  It makes you lose focus and drive.  It makes you lose hope.  Today, I am hopeful.

Praying for healing for all of us and most importantly, our children.